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If you look at their stock performance and management compensation the last 25 years, much of the responsibility seems to lie with the manufacturers themselves.

They had roughly two decades to adapt, but instead they often relied on strategies like pressuring German workers with the possibility of relocating production to Poland to keep wages down, while investing little in research and development during a period when sales were strong and new markets, such as China, were opening up.

There must be more to it. German automakers did belong to the top 10 (for some periods even top 5) R&D spenders world-wide. It seems they just did not spend it wisely. Similarly, the claim they "kept wages down" seems to require some nuance. VW workers are known to be very well paid. From the outside it seems like these companies became large behemoths who were not able to spend their R&D money wisely and their outsized pay packages forcing them to offer their products at uncompetitive prices.

As a university computer scientist, I saw our graduates hardly getting job in automotive directly while mechanical engineers got all the good jobs for years. Then about 10 years ago the opposite happened: people quit their PhDs because industry was hiring as many CS /AI people they could get. Industry understood that they needed to invest (even it was already a bit late). However, they IMHO failed to turn scale that talent into sustainable innovation. Many people I know left again automotive. I think industry struggled quite a bit to translate engineering leadership to a digital age in many parts. I think it was easier for pure EV manufacturers to embrace also other digital innovations.

Software need to interface almost all parts and electronics in a vehicle. Since car makers outsourced these parts, interfacing them took a lot of work. Here manufacturers like Tesla were clearly at an advantage since they controlled all components.

That is a nightmare situation for software that already started later in the development process.

There's not much more to it.

The internal EU market is bad (demand is low), the export markets are sensitive and competitive, and traditional Western companies are inefficient. (Which was okay as we were coasting on the post-WW2 globalization economic miracles.

But the inability and unwillingness to let the failing (uncompetitive) companies and industries go (France has a huge problem with this too) led to being stuck between a rock and an eventual hard place.

I'm not working in this industry, but I am living in Germany. I'm lucky enough to take remote jobs all around the world, but I'm a bit scared on what it means politically in Germany when the sh*t really hits the fan.

This might be one of the reasons I should not buy an apartment and settle in Germany...

No where is safe from this kind of fuckery though. Greed is in human nature because education is gamified, sports are gamified, business is gamified, your attention is even gamified. You’re forced to run a race you never signed up for in a manner which you disagree with for an audience that gives nothing in return but laughs as they watch you spin the wheel for them.

Literary aside, there used to be a time when you could count on a company and they could count on you. Now it’s a culture cult. This makes whistleblowing and doing what’s right virtually impossible. Who wants to sacrifice everything? Only the scorned and mistreated or it has to be egregious enough to solicit public outcry.

Shouldn't whistle-blowing be much easier in a more transactional work culture where everyone knows you can't count on the company and they'll fuck you over next Thursday on a whim of some consultant or an ambitious upper manager?

That entirely depends on the current economy. If they know they might have opportunities elsewhere, toot that whistle..

Sadly no. The world is litigious. The expection is that a wealthy corporation will crush anyone who holds it accountable.

Weimar 2.0 Electric Boogaloo

The fact that Angela Merkel closed down all nuclear power plants was probably a big part of the lower interest in EVs in recent year. Although they invested a lot in solar and wind, the solid base of electricity generation disappeared and thus the trust in electricity for transport disappeared amongst automotive management and the population at large.

"the solid base of electricity generation disappeared and thus the trust in electricity for transport disappeared"

I'm sorry, but WTF?

This is the most unhinged drivel about German nuclear I have ever read on HN, and that's saying something.

There no problem with "trust in electricity", whatsoever, nor is there any lack of a "solid base". There has been no electricity grid collapse in Germany for decades(in stark contrast to the US, or f.e. Spain). Any problems with electrcity have been due to terrorism or building errors.

Even with that, in case you haven't noticed, EV cars run on batteries and don't need constant power. Perhaps for "preppers" or people living in remote areas it would be a factor, but I have never in my life heard anyone connect the use of EV power with the power station the charging comes from or how reliable the grid is.

WTF about your understanding of the German power grid, I would say.

Germany is not in a position to continuously meet its own electricity needs, but is dependent on daily aid deliveries of electricity from abroad. The electricity needs of industry cannot be met in a market-oriented manner, but taxpayers have to spend additional money so that industry can continue to produce at all.

The absurdly high prices for electricity in Germany prevent any competitiveness. Ignoring all of this can only be described as WTF – what country do you actually live in?

Energy scientist in Germany here. Germany could fully supply it's national grid with German energy production. We just don't do it because it's cheaper to buy i.e. heavily subsidized nuclear power from France, or other sources. In the end, it's all markets across the whole EU - by design. Why should it not be, the European energy grid is interconnected for a reason.

As a Germany energy scientist you should be very angry that right now according to ElectricityMaps.com Germany is emitting about 17 times as much CO2 per watt as France is.

waves fist

Germany also has some of the most expensive electricity in the world. It is so expensive it is making some industries unprofitable. BASF, a major German chemical company, has implemented plant closures due to high production costs.

Most countries choose either cheap and dirty or expensive and clean for electricity but Germany chose expensive AND dirty.

In 2010 I was paying 10 cents per kWh. In 2025 I am paying 36 cents per kWh. What ever happened in these 15 years, it is an absolute death spiral.

> Germany could fully supply it's national grid with German energy production.

With coal. And gas imported from Russia and by boat from the USA.

What you call "aid from abroad" is generally called a functioning wide area synchronous grid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_area_synchronous_grid) which covers most of the EU plus some Balkan states, Moldova, Ukraine, Turkey and the northwestern corner of Africa. So Germany can sell power to others when renewables are generating more than it needs (which is often), and import power, not necessarily because it couldn't produce it, but because importing it can be cheaper than e.g. starting up an additional backup plant. This is nothing special and has been working reliably for decades.

That's right, Germany sells electricity to other countries during the day and buys electricity in the evening because there is no sun then.

The problem is that other countries also have solar and wind power during the day and don't need this electricity at all. That's why Germany has to “sell” this surplus electricity, even though no one needs it. To ensure that the electricity is still "purchased", Germany has to pay money for it. In the evening, Germany has to pay money to buy back the missing electricity.

Paying money to have something purchased is generally referred to as garbage fees.

That does not seem to be a long term problem. Wind and solar can be down regulated with ease (and within fractions of a second), a negative prices only happen because producers got a flat-fee per kWh which is pretty much phase-out now. The problem is rather that Germany (plus Luxembourg) is still a single price zone, i.e when wind is blowing in Hamburg, the per-kWh price in Passau is also nill. While this is nice for Bavaria (the main culprit, as usual), there is an enormous cost for this in the form of re-dispatch fees as long as the grid is not strengthened a lot.

The main culprit as usual? They have been financing the whole gaga show for years.

What gaga show? Bavarian industry is being subsidized via cheap electricity from the north, who in turn is paying higher prices than they would otherwise.

Bavaria has been subsidizing the north for decades and yet you think you can betitle us? This is not just about electricity. We are talking about billions of EUR in transfers. The money is flowing one direction only. So called “solidarity” is a hard ask given this arrogance.

Dont listen to Söder, he ate too many sausages which makes him spout nonsense constantly.

Söder merely repeated what Bavarians have been thinking and saying since when he still hadn't left Franken.

I realise my post was unnecessary inflammatory and I'm sorry for that. Enough Internet for today.

The money is flowing in one direction only now, but what the "Stammtisch" likes to forget is that Bavaria has benefited from transfers until as recently as 1992, and from 1950 to 1986 (36 years!) the money also flowed in only one direction - but the opposite one, from other states to Bavaria. (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A4nderfinanzausgleich#Fin...)

You are accusing me of belittling "you", after you wrote "gaga show".

That's ironic. And no, money is not flowing in one direction only. As I already wrote, Bavarian industry is effectively massively subsidized by the north investing massively in renewable energy production and overpaying for their own energy because demand is driven by the south (who is fighting tooth and nails against building their own wind turbines for ideological reasons).

Greetings from Hessen (another Geberland, just like Bavarian, but without the Bavarian exceptionalism, which most of Germany just sees as arrogance)!

I call buying French nuclear electricity after shutting down your own reactors hypocrisy.

I call it an opportunity. Let France built reactors on their borders (looking at you, Chooz) and earn money. What's the problem here? Everybody gets what they want.

The problem is it makes Germany's decision to shut down their perfectly safe nuclear reactors completely pointless.

Agreed, but that's over a decade against now. Time to move on. If Germans just don't want nuclear in their back yard, but have now issue buying from France (soon Poland perhaps), then so be it.

The need for cheap reliable electricity is eternal.

Nuclear reactors are about the most expensive way of producing energy. If you want cheap energy you certainly want to phase out nuclear, which is only viable with massive subsidies or externalities paid for by the tax payer.

Renewables have been built on the back of decades of subsidies, tax credits, mandated purchase obligations (RPSs), and net metering policies that shift integration costs to non-participants. Singling out nuclear here is intellectually dishonest unless you apply the same standard to all sources.

A grid running 70%+ renewables needs massive storage, transmission overbuild, and firm backup capacity costs that don't appear in solar/wind LCOE figures but are real and substantial. Nuclear provides firm, dispatchable, carbon-free baseload with a ~90%+ capacity factor. Solar capacity factors are 20-30%, wind 30-45%.

The OECD's 2020 Projected Costs study shows that at a 3% discount rate with a $30/ton carbon price, nuclear was the cheapest dispatchable option in most countries. Nuclear becomes comfortably cheaper than coal and gas under carbon pricing at low discount rates.

Yes and nuclear was especially funded like that by countries with nuclear weapons. Is not a coincidence that there's so much overlap between countries with much nuclear power and weapons.

Not that nuclear power plants create weaponisable isotopes, they don't, but having a healthy functioning nuclear industry really helps.

Conflating nuclear power and nuclear weapons is the mistake Germany made that led to their deeply stupid decision to shut down their perfectly safe nuclear reactors.

It most definitely is not?

The decision was made in response to Fukushima, 15 years ago. Generational trauma from Chernobyl probably played a role as well. How does this relate to nuclear weapons at all?

Personally I think we do need nuclear weapons but not nuclear power. We can't rely on the US anymore for a nuclear umbrella so Europe needs to have its own (and just the UK/French ones is not enough).

It's the only real deterrent against Russia. But nuclear power I'm not in favour of due to the long-term waste and potential safety impact.

Those "perfectly safe" reactors were hopelessly outdated (the ones last shut down in 2023 were built from 1982 to 1988/89) and nearing the end of their useful life. What no one mentions about nuclear power in Germany: since they weren't allowed to start a nuclear weapons program of their own, one of the reasons for having a civilian nuclear program was already missing, so the German nuclear plants were mostly showcases of Siemens nuclear technology. Once Siemens decided to completely withdraw from this sector in 2011, there was no pro-nuclear lobby in Germany anymore, so the fate of the remaining nuclear reactors was sealed, although some more political theater followed (and still continues).

Of course, this was just the final chapter of a story that began way back in 1986, when Chernobyl led to no further reactors being built in Germany and other countries shelving their plans for nuclear power. If you think the situation in Germany is curious, then look at Austria, who already in 1978 decided to "temporarily" mothball a 100% completed nuclear power plant, a decision which turned permanent in 1986 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Austria). Or Italy, which shut down all four of its nuclear power plants (from the 60s and 70s) by 1990 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Italy).

They were absolutely not hopelessly outdated. Nuclear reactors can last 60 to 80 years.

When I checked electricity maps today Germany was emitting 17 times as much CO2 per Watt of electricity as France. That is what idiotically shutting down nuclear reactors instead of coal plants does and German environmentalists should be ashamed of themselves. German electricity is also some of the most expensive in the world and is causing companies to close plants in Germany. BASF, a major German chemical company, has implemented plant closures due to high production costs. Germany's energy policy is a disaster that has made electricity both expensive and dirty.

> The electricity needs of industry cannot be met in a market-oriented manner

Do you care to elaborate? AFAIK, the EU electricity market is... a market?

The design is debatable, as always with these things. Perhaps you wanted to say something precise about subsidies?

One important consideration is that Germany profited from cheap Russian gas, and continued building Nord Stream 2 post Russian operations in Ukraine in 2014. This is a bet that a huge geopolitical risk would not actualize, which it did in 2022.

Good luck modulating nuclear power plants when there is a lot of cheap renewable energy available.

...because you don't have to modulate renewable energy?

Ideally, you have 300% renewable energy available and then modulate actual production based on demand.

Renewable is cheap, but not that cheap.

Also, solar production and heating needs are anticyclical.

Also, the European grid is big (the biggest!), but not so big it can deal with seasons and weather patterns. Yet. Or ever.

The idea was that gas would fill in the gaps, until energy storage at scale becomes a thing (no, it is still nowhere near scale, only gas reserves can fill that role right now). Germany is investing heavily in hydrogen to fill this gap, but barring fundamental breakthroughs, I think it's a pipe dream. A 90% (roughly) total efficiency loss means 1000% oveprovisioning of generation capacity. That's expensive, even when cheap.

There's no technical need to do that, because someone who can always deliver electricity would be able to struck contracts with those that always need it, i.e. heavy industry, esp. aluminum and chemistry. The reason why downregulation was necessary in the 2000s and 2010s was regulation ("Einspeisevorrang"), not technology.

If someone takes it near the power plant, and all the infrastructure is there for it. You don't build a (large) nuclear power plant just for these customers though. Generally, with a high amount of renewable but fluctuating supply, we have to get away from the base load model, towards a residual load model.

The burden of buffering the fluctuation is on those creating the fluctuation, not on those not doing so.

Says who? We can design the markets like that if we want to, but that won't help us reach our climate targets.

Checks notes on carbondioxide emissions of Germany and France

I think you’re wrong.

Power is essentially free when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, why would people buy more expensive nuclear power during that time?

>Power is essentially free when…

This is not true, since you still need to pay for capex and depreciation. The reason it appears to be free is not because its production doesn’t cost anything, but because at times of a glut there‘s just no one willing to pay much for it. Please make some good will effort to acknowledge the difference between cost and price.

Now, about your question, why people should buy „expensive“ nuclear power: for the same reason that people buy health insurance for: volatility increases risk, and you’re willing to pay an ongoing premium to reduce systemic risks. Over- and undersupply of electricity are risks for a lot of businesses and lots of them spend a lot of money on capex to avoid them, e.g. hospitals that have diesel generators. Generators are for a different failure mode (rare, longer duration outages), but for the high frequency, short time interruptions and/or price spikes caused by unbalanced generation volatility, contracts with a nuclear power company are similar; the capex is just shifted to the power company, and the customer might pay a premium during those times that other sources would deliver energy „for free“.

That said, this is not a black-and-white scenario. Of course we can benefit a lot from solar and wind. I’m not very positive about large scale batteries and lean more towards having flexible consumers, e.g. H2 production for the chemical industry. But right now, we don’t have the choice of nuclear vs. renewables, it’s (renewables + nuclear) vs. (renewables + turbines run with Russian gas or LNG from the US and Qatar). My choice here is clear, and it should not be muddied by the Russian propaganda of nuclear power clogging our electricity grids.

> It's not as simple as 100% of this is on the car manufacturers.

Another big lobbyist is chemical industry. They are very reliant on gas.

The problem is that there wasn't a correction of these business policies. It still is the same as before, engineering talent gets outsourced and software and more frequently also hardware parts is something that Germany despises completely by now. You are in sales or legal, anything else is secondary.